Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Sovrn is a Software and Data business that helps Open Web businesses be and remain independent. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the design and evolution of backend systems, focusing on adtech infrastructure and AI-native engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and evolution of backend systems that operate at exchange scale — high throughput, low latency, always on
• Lead architectural decisions across auction infrastructure, bid processing, traffic shaping, and supply-side integrations
• Establish and champion AI engineering practices across the team — from prompt engineering and RAG patterns to agentic workflow design and LLM evaluation
• Identify high-leverage opportunities to apply AI in our adtech stack: traffic scoring and filtering, bid shading, yield optimization, anomaly detection, and automated decisioning
• Set standards for how we evaluate, trust, and operate AI-powered systems in production — including observability, fallback behavior, and model governance
• Drive technical standards, design reviews, and engineering best practices across a senior team
• Partner with product, data science, and platform teams to ship end-to-end
• Help the broader engineering team build fluency and confidence with AI tooling, not just tolerance of it
• Mentor and level up engineers through code review, design collaboration, and hands-on guidance

Skills

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong backend track record
• 5+ years working specifically in adtech infrastructure — SSP, DSP, exchange, or ad server environments
• Deep fluency in the programmatic ecosystem: OpenRTB, bid request/response flows, auction mechanics, supply path optimization, or similar
• Experience building and operating systems at exchange scale — high QPS, strict latency budgets, fault tolerance
• Demonstrated experience leading AI or agentic engineering efforts in production environments — not just experimentation, but shipped, operated, and iterated on
• Hands-on experience with LLM integration patterns: RAG, tool use, multi-step agentic workflows, prompt engineering, and evaluation frameworks
• Strong distributed systems fundamentals: messaging, caching, service architecture, observability
• Comfort driving technical decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• A point of view on where AI is and isn't the right tool — and the credibility to make that case

Benefits

• Bonus
• Equity
• Competitive salaries
• Stock options
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Short and long-term disability
• Life insurance
• 11 paid holidays
• Flexible vacation
• Commuter benefits
• A 401(k) plan and match
• A paid parental leave program

Company Overview